Hi quirky, I don’t know if you are addressing the original poster (Newyboy) or me. You appear to be addressing two people as if they are one. Newyboy has not left their strata manager. I left five years ago. I was reflecting on my own experience to give others hope.
Strata management is complicated, …
I notice in this (and other) threads a little bit of push back from the strata managers. It is the same old tactic of saying that strata management is so complicated that mere laypeople like me could never do it.
Instead of telling the layperson to back off and let the strata manager take over, why not EDUCATE the layperson? Encourage them to read the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 so that they know the rules.
… and from this history, you and your fellow owners have muddled though only from luck, and stumbling across people who voluntarily helped, like a bank employee.
Who’s history? Mine or Newyboy’s? We’ve already become self mentioned. The bank manager provided me no material support, except to open a bank account. That’s their job. In my earlier post, I detailed what was needed to open an account to inform anyone who wants to know what to do.
I have not stumbled across anyone to help me. The only voluntary helper is me.
I find it offensive that you suggest I muddled through only from luck. I spent hundreds of hours recording every financial transaction into finance software, going back 50 years (probably overkill), setting up spreadsheets to produce financial reports for the AGM and levy notices for the owners. My reports look exactly like the ones produced by the strata manager. I studied every line of Schedule 1 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 to make sure I prepared the meeting notice, agenda and minutes completely.
In the midst of Australia’s “cost of living crisis”, our strata levy remained the same for the past five years. Our costs have decreased. With the money saved, we completed two significant capital works projects and we’re now saving for solar panels and solar batteries. All the other strata plans in our neighbourhood complain that they can’t get repairs done because they don’t have the funds.
It’s not luck. It’s hard work and brains.
A building with 8 Units is quite large, and I have to wonder if you can self manage the plan with your lack of experience. It sounds like you plan to embark on a program of repairs and improvement, with the increased investment in the building, and doing that without good strata knowledge is going to be a struggle.
From my experience: our strata manager’s capital works plan was not worth the paper it was written on (and we paid $400 for it). I compiled a new one on a spreadsheet. I can move projects forwards and backwards in time and the capital works budgets adjusts itself automatically. It is important to get the owners involved in the decision making. Together we choose the projects which have the greatest need or benefit.
I understand you not renewing with your present strata manager. But it might be better to find another one, perhaps one that is not part of a slick huge corporation.
Newyboy has not quit their strata manager yet. I have been self managed for five years.
You can negotiate with a strata manager for them to take over a limited set of duties – the committee can do all the quote getting, contract reviewing and bin cleaning, and leave the strata manager to manage the accounts and provide advice about the complex stuff, like fire safety Orders and Schedules, insurance, by-laws and so on.
Good luck with that. Our strata manager had a term in their contract which allowed them to spend up to $500 for repairs without seeking the consent of the owners corporation. Every repair, no matter how complex or simple, would cost $495 or $490. We voted to instruct them to stop doing this and a couple of of other questionable practices. They terminated the contract.
- Fire safety is not complex. You can google it.
- Insurance is more expensive when sought through a broker. You can google strata insurance, find a cheaper provider and avoid paying the 20% brokerage.
- By-laws: are explained in the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015. To update by-laws, I took the Certificate of Title, the minutes of the meeting and the updated by-laws to the Land and Property Information Office and registered them personally. Cost $146. If we let the strata manager do it, $550. (Nowadays, the registration of by-laws has to be done via a brokerage service.) Nobody told me how to do this. Certainly not the strata manager. I figured it out with google.
Be aware that some other owners might take advantage of your inexperience, and act up, since none of your committee members know anything much about strata laws, I assume.
Yes and No. They try to act up. They also know that if they go back to strata management, that’s $10,000 per year down the toilet. Owners can be entitled and abusive. I don’t like verbal abuse but I hate wasting money even more.
Strata laws: The Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 and the Strata Schemes Management Regulations 2016 are on the internet. They are the bible for any self-managing strata committee. Web sites like FlatChat, Fair Trading, Owners Corporation Network and various strata lawyers are good too. I prefer to check what the law says first. I also read judgements from past cases in NCAT.